November 08, 2009

Five weeks and counting. Five weeks and something like two days, I think. Oh, who am I kidding, like I don't know down to the minute. To be precise, 37 days. 37 days as of tomorrow. 37 days and one more evening, I guess, if I'm going to be totally exact. Is what I've got left in New York, of course.

I've been doing this thing which is totally maddening and kind of makes me want to smack myself gently in the face to snap out of it, but I can't seem to help it, this thing where I'll be somewhere, not even somewhere special, maybe just on the corner of 7th Avenue and 28th Street, which is sort of Nowheresville compared to other glimmering parts of this city, but who cares, I happen to love it. Anyway. The light will fall just so on that random little corner while the strangest accumulation of beautiful creatures will emerge from the subway moving like jungle cats and some cab driver will be screaming epithets from three lanes away while leaning on his horn and the cars will be moving along gracefully in this perfect symphony and a homeless dude will smile at me sweetly and I'll see the Rafiqi's cart guy pulling into his regular space and the wind will whip through my hair and suddenly I'll just lose my breath, it'll just get caught in my throat and my heart will stop and I'll find myself thinking This is it, this is the last time I'll ever be on the corner of 7th Avenue and 28th Street when the light falls just so with that crazy cabbie yelling over the din and the Rafiqi's guy setting up his cart, The Very Last Time, OMG, I must be crazy if I think I can leave, how on earth can I ever leave? Help.

And because I'm sentimental and in love with my city, the kind of love that I don't think will ever die, this happens to me on almost every street corner, at almost every moment. Don't get me started on when I see my friends. Let's just say I'm walking around with a perpetually clenched heart these days.

Which is all sort of ridiculous, of course. First of all, my reason for leaving is the kind of thing that still has me waking up with a disbelieving grin on my face most mornings. And second of all, New York is not exactly going anywhere. As most kind people tell me these days, I can always come back. I can always come back. I can always come back. Thirdly, while New York is without a doubt the Greatest City in the World, fully deserving of every tear I shed for its wondrous, sparkling, incredible self, I think I tend towards the slightly hysterical when it comes to saying goodbye, no matter where I am, let's be honest.

Anyway.

One of the loveliest things to happen in these last few weeks was finally seeing what my friends Francis and Ganda were like in real life. Which just makes me laugh, really, since I can still remember those Stone Age days when I thought that people who made friends online were just totally strange and definitely a little suspect. And now I'm the kind of person who has dinner with her friends from the Internet, and it's practically like we've known each other for years. Which we have! Sort of. You know what I mean.

Anyway.

Francis made his famous koshary, Ganda brought positively addictive French Mint Bars from Li-Lac, so good they inspired a surprise visit from my strange disappearing sweet tooth (let me tell you about that unnerving phenomenon another time), and I made Akhtar Nawab's pork meatballs, finally, after hoarding the recipe carefully for two years.

Don't wait that long, is all I can tell you. These meatballs are wonderful. Even better, they come with two little sauces that catapult the meatballs from Very Tasty into Totally Delicious. Two sauces may seem like overkill to you (well, they did to me in any case), but I say think of them as a reason to pull out those adorable sauce dishes you might have been given as a wedding present, or the little bowls you bought at a flea market in Paris years ago and never seem to use.

The meatballs are flavored with everything from ground coriander to minced oregano. Interestingly, instead of mixing soaked bread into the raw meat in clumps, Akhtar has you sweat an onion until it's soft and translucent, then purée that onion with milk-soaked bread into a fragrant paste and mix that into the raw meat. Clever! The meat is shaped into balls and then fried in butter and oil until browned on all sides (mine went from rounds to triangularish domes in the pan, but no matter, they still tasted good). They're savory and herbal and crunchy and deeply wonderful.

The sauces are meant to be drizzled and dripped on the meatballs - first the yogurt sauce, which is so thick it can only be dolloped, and then the mint sauce, which is so good I could have sat down on the floor with a spoon and made it my dinner. (I'm having this weirdly intense thing with vinegar lately. I can't get enough of it. Even pickles don't seem to cut it. Maybe it's related to my disappearing sweet tooth? I don't know, I don't even care. I just want more vinegar, please. Straight from the bottle is fine, too.) If you're serving these as an appetizer, I think it'd be cute to arrange the meatballs on a platter, each stuck with a little toothpick, then drizzled and dolloped in advance by you before your guests set themselves upon the toothpicked meatballs like hungry Visigoths. If you're serving these as part of a meal, then pass the sauces in their bowls and let your guests dress their meatballs as they wish.

1. For yogurt dressing, combine yogurt, cumin, and sugar. Slowly whisk in oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover and refrigerate.

2. For mint dressing, combine mint, shallot and vinegar in small bowl. Slowly whisk in oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, cover and refrigerate.

3. For meatballs, combine bread and milk in a bowl, and stir until bread has absorbed milk.

4. Combine 1 tablespoon of oil and onion in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sizzling, then cover, reduce heat to low and cook until onion is softened but not colored. Transfer to food processor, add bread mixture and purée.

5. Combine coriander, cumin, fennel and hot red-pepper flakes in small skillet over medium heat and stir until lightly toasted and fragrant. Remove from heat and grind to a powder in a spice grinder.

6. Mix meat, the bread mixture, spices and salt in a large stand mixer with paddle attachment. Add parsley and oregano, and mix again. With wet hands, roll into 1-inch balls.

7. Place large skillet over medium heat. Add butter and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. When butter has melted, reduce heat slightly and begin adding meatballs, allowing them to brown on the bottom, then turning gently to continue browning on all sides. Work in batches, transferring meatballs to a platter when they are cooked. To serve, drizzle with yogurt dressing and sprinkle with mint dressing.

June 18, 2009

Oof. That ever happen to you? You spend a big part of your evening grocery shopping, prepping, and cooking, only to find yourself - twenty minutes later - staring at the half-eaten plate of pasta in front of you, wishing you'd just fixed a salad?

I hate it when that happens. Especially when it's with a recipe I've been hoarding forever - and something that sounds as good as pasta with turkish-style lamb, eggplant and yogurt sauce. Right? Sounds tasty, doesn't it? The thing is, the meal indeed was pretty good. I used Melissa Clark's recipe, subbing ground beef for lamb (it's what I had in the freezer). What you do is roast eggplant at very high heat - a nice little trick in and of itself, since you end up with meltingly soft on the inside, super-crisp on the outside, addictive little eggplant cubes - and then combine that with sauteed ground beef flavored with shallots, minced garlic and a generous amount of Aleppo pepper.

(Aleppo pepper! Aleppo pepper. I could say that all day long. It just rolls off the tongue so nicely, wouldn't you say? Aleppo pepper!)

You serve that mixture over boiled pasta (orecchiette would be best) and top it off with browned butter and garlicky yogurt. Manti, deconstructed, as Melissa says. So, yes, it's all very delicious and interesting and all that, but still, I just couldn't get my appetite up.

Am I secretly - even to myself - considering vegetarianism? Was it just too much food (Melissa says this serves 2 to 3 people, but eyeballing my leftovers, I think at least 4 could be happy)? Did I get overwhelmed by the amount of leftovers staring me down? It's a Thursday morning mystery, is what it is. In the meantime, does anyone want to come over for dinner tonight?

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Bring a pot of water to boil for pasta.

2. Toss eggplant with 4 tablespoons oil and a large pinch of salt (I also mistakenly added one minced garlic clove here). Spread on a baking sheet, making sure there is room between pieces, and roast until crisp and brown, 15 to 20 minutes.

3. In a large skillet, heat remaining tablespoon oil. Add 2 minced garlic cloves and the shallot and sauté until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add beef, 1/2 teaspoon salt, red pepper, and black pepper to taste. Sauté until beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Stir in mint and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir eggplant into beef. Taste and adjust seasonings.

4. Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt butter: the amount is to your taste. Let cook until it turns golden brown and smells nutty, about 5 minutes. In a small bowl, stir together yogurt, remaining garlic (well, I didn't have any remaining garlic, plus I don't like raw garlic, so I left the yogurt garlic-less) and a pinch of salt.

5. Drain pasta and spread on a serving platter. Top with beef-eggplant mixture, then with yogurt sauce. Pour melted butter over top. Sprinkle on additional red pepper and more mint. Serve immediately.

May 20, 2009

It is 80 degrees in New York City today (that's 26 degrees Celsius - one degree warmer than would be required to close school in Berlin!) and I'm spooning up pork ragout like it's the first day of winter and I've just settled in for the long haul. Strange? Perhaps. But awfully tasty.

I'll blame the fact that I have this wintry stew in my house in the first place on the fact that spring has taken its sweet old time getting here this year. You know the global weather's out of whack when Berliners are in shorts in April and we're still pulling out our wool coats well into May.

Last week, when this recipe flitted across my radar (from an old Pairings column from, you guessed it, the ever-reliable Florence Fabricant), it was just the right time for pork-and-beans - cold, windy, rather gray. Though I'm realizing that apparently warm, sunny and rather bright is also a good time for pork-and-beans. In fact, shall we just put it this way? When is it ever not a good time for pork-and-beans? Okay, maybe a July weekend at the beach. Maybe then.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe - using half the amount of pork and orange, and a little less smoked paprika than called for. Instead of cannellini beans, I used Rancho Gordo's Yellow Indian Woman beans because I am in love and you cannot mess with a woman in love. With beans. What resulted was a warm, smoky, fragrant stew that got better and better and better with each passing day. The pork became fork-tender and delicious, the beans held their shape beautifully, the wine and the orange juice and the rosemary and spices melded into a rich, sticky stew that goes very well over rice or mopped up with crusty bread, or simply spooned up out of the plate, too.

And with that, I'm closing down the department of stews, ragouts and braises for the season. Bring on the salads, the cold soups, and the fresh fruit of summer!

1. Place beans in a saucepan, cover with water by 2 inches, bring to a boil, cook 2 minutes, cover and set aside to soak 1 hour.

2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 4-quart casserole and brown pork without crowding over medium-high heat. Remove. Add onion, garlic and bell pepper. Sauté over low heat until soft. Stir in paprika, cloves and zest. Stir in orange juice and wine, scraping bottom of pan. Return pork to pan. Set aside until beans have finished soaking, then drain beans and add. Add rosemary, black pepper and chili. Bring to a simmer.

3. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 hours, until beans are tender. Add water occasionally, if needed. Season with salt. Leave in casserole for serving or transfer to a serving dish. Scatter parsley on top before serving.

November 23, 2008

Remember when I went to San Francisco back in September? I had this great lunch at A16 whilst there and I realized I never told you about it. Seriously wonderful. My lunch companion and I shared a plate of burrata dabbed with this amazing chili oil - the recipe is in the cookbook - and then a plate of meatballs that quite literally were the greatest meatballs I've ever eaten. Swear to God. Pillowy and incredibly tender, perfectly seasoned, napped in tomato sauce so good that should be bottled and sold, and all I wanted to eat for the rest of that trip.

Besides the flavor, the consistency is what really drove me nuts. How were they able to hold their shape and still be so soft at the same time?

Divine providence, then, when I realized that a recipe for these very same meatballs was published in the LA Times not a few days before I went to the West Coast. I'm surprised that it took me two whole months to get around to making these - every time I thought about those darn meatballs, my stomach started rumbling. I'm such a dainty girl, aren't I?

Right off the bat, I made a few small changes: first of all, my store had no pork shoulder, so I was forced to buy ground pork loin. Second of all, I left out the pork fat because, well, just because. I didn't know where to buy it and since I had more than 2 ounces of prosciutto at home, I thought I'd sub the prosciutto for the pork fat. Okay? Oh, and instead of whole milk, I used 1%. Alright, that's out of the way. The raw mixture was gorgeous - sort of wobbly and very moist. The fact that the recipe doesn't tell you what to do with the bread is a little maddening, but I improvised: cut off the crusts and cubed the bread rather roughly.

The technique is simply genius. Instead of frying meatballs in a pan and getting spattered oil simply everywhere, you just lay the meatballs on oiled baking sheets and stick them in the oven for half an hour. (Of course, if your oven is in dire need of a cleaning, be prepared for some smoking, but that's neither here nor there, Miss Filth.) Then you take the meatballs, paleish but firmed up, and pack them into a baking dish, drowning them in pureed tomatoes. That dish gets covered tightly with aluminum foil and back into the oven it goes. Meatballs braised in tomato sauce! Are you hungry yet? I just had breakfast and I think I am.

After an hour and a quarter, the sauce looked darkly rusty and set and the meatballs were cooked through. We set the table, put out the grana and a grater and some sliced bread, and got to work.

Well. Hrm. Okay.

The meatballs were fine, a little over-salted (actually, more than a little, even though I used less salt than called for because Ben thinks he's pre-hypertensive and I'd rather not argue about it), but fine. Average. They were not the gloriously puffy, tender specimens I ate in San Francisco, nor was there really enough sauce - the liquid had mostly evaporated (even though I added 1/4 cup of water to the pan, right before putting the pan in the oven, because the tomatoes looked a little dry) and the tomatoes were sort of thick and sticky on top of the meatballs. I wouldn't write home about these meatballs and sort of couldn't wait to move on to salad (more on that tomorrow). I thought about freezing the rest for those emergency nights when you have to eat something but find the idea of cooking painful on the level of sticking a fork in your eye. That kind of fine, if you know what I mean.

Was it my fault? Because I bought ground loin instead of shoulder? Because of the pork fat? Because of the 1% milk? It didn't seem entirely likely, but who knows. I was going to just write here that the chefs probably had some secret restaurant trick that they didn't want to divulge in the cookbook and that the meatballs are one of those things that you simply have to go to San Francisco to try yourself and leave it at that.

Except as I was preparing to write this entry, I noodled around online a bit to see what anyone else had to say and I came across a Food & Wine article about the restaurant from a year and a half ago. Lo and behold, the article also included a recipe for the famous meatballs and it was totally, substantially different from the one I tried. First of all, no beef at all! Just pork, and lean ground at that. Second of all, no pork fat or prosciutto! Just pancetta. Third of all, more bread and with actual directions - namely that it's not meant to be cubed at all! But blitzed into crumbs. Fourth, yes, fourth of all, two whole cans of tomatoes, double the amount of tomatoes I used. And fifth (I kid you not), the meatballs are supposed to braise for Two. Whole. Hours. Not an hour to an hour and a half.

What gives, people? Why is that recipe so different from the one in the cookbook? If I had followed the Food & Wine one, would I be blessed with the gorgeous texture and sauce I so craved? I don't know, nor can I really face the idea of making another 30 meatballs before Thanksgiving. If any of you try the Food & Wine recipe, do let me know, would you?

In the meantime, file this one in the Frustrating Kitchen Experience folder.

Next day update: I went to the bookstore and checked out this recipe in the actual cookbook: the LA Times didn't transcribe the instructions of grinding up the bread, but the instructions are there in the book, so there's that. Also, the meatballs, after a night in the fridge and then heated up in their sauce, (with an extra splash of water or two) are pretty good: the texture is fluffier and I found them quite tasty. The porkiness was much more pronounced, if you're into that sort of thing. We ate them with spaghetti on this second go-around and it was a pretty nice lunch. So maybe not such an entirely frustrating experience after all, but still, I'm going back to the drawing board at some point.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs and
milk just enough to break up any large curds of ricotta. Add the
ricotta mixture to the ground meat mixture and mix lightly with your
hands just until incorporated. The mixture should feel wet and tacky.
Pinch off a small piece, flatten it into a disk, and cook it in a small
sauté pan. Taste and adjust the mixture’s seasoning with salt, if
needed.

3. Form the mixture into 1 1/2 -inch balls, each weighing
about 2 ounces, and place on the prepared baking sheets. You should
have about 30 meatballs.

4. Bake, rotating the sheets once from front to back,
for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the meatballs are lightly browned.
Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 300 degrees.

5. Sprinkle the tomatoes with the remaining salt, and then
pass the tomatoes and their juices through a food mill fitted with the
medium plate. Alternatively, put the entire can of tomatoes and salt in
a large bowl, don an apron and squeeze the tomatoes into small pieces
with your hands.

6. Pack the meatballs into 1 large roasting pan or 2 smaller
roasting pans. Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs, cover tightly
with aluminum foil, and braise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the
meatballs are tender and have absorbed some of the tomato sauce.

7. Remove the pans from the oven and uncover. Distribute the basil leaves throughout the sauce.

8. For each serving, ladle the meatballs with some of the
sauce into a warmed bowl. Grate the grana over the top, drizzle with
olive oil to finish and serve immediately.

May 19, 2008

I made this chicken last night and thought it tasted just like garlicky chicken bathed in a sauce made of melted hard candy. (Well! Anyone still out there?)

Ben and our dinner guest, Seb, didn't agree, but now that I think about it more carefully, Ben really didn't say anything about the meal at all, and I think it's possible that Seb might have just been protesting out of politesse. The silly thing is that when I first read the recipe, I just knew I shouldn't even try it. There's just something about vanilla's cloying perfume that I find difficult, even in luscious sweet recipes. So in a savory chicken dish? I thought it best just to steer clear.

But Elaine Louie's One Pot column has a special little place in my heart and I've had success with the dishes I've tried from it so far (these noodles and this curry - which I'm just realizing I never told you about...delicious, it was!). So somehow I let myself be convinced to try it.

To think, I used two more chicken thighs than called for, a little more cayenne, and only half of the vanilla bean, and I didn't even strip out the seeds - I just split it and let it boil in the syrupy orange sauce. Oh, that orange sauce, so saccharine and sticky, even with the cayenne and vinegar and garlic, and such a strange, unpleasant combination of savory and sweet. Ooh, I'm suppressing a shudder just thinking about it again.

1. Season chicken with the salt and 1/4
teaspoon black pepper. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over
medium-high heat. Add chicken pieces skin side down, and brown until
golden on both sides, turning once, 3 to 5 minutes on each side.

2. When chicken is browned, pour off any
excess fat from skillet and return to medium heat. Sprinkle cayenne and
1/8 teaspoon black pepper over chicken, turning pieces to coat evenly.
Taste a pinch of the skin, and add more cayenne if additional heat is
desired. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add vinegar, butter and
orange juice. Scrape in pulp of vanilla bean and add bean. Stir liquid
to blend.

3. Cook chicken skin side up, uncovered,
basting occasionally with sauce, until sauce is reduced to a syrupy
glaze, 20 to 25 minutes. If interior of chicken needs further cooking
(it should be 170 degrees when tested in center with an instant-read
thermometer), cover and cook over medium-low heat for an additional 5
to 10 minutes, or as needed. Garnish with cilantro. Serve hot, with
rice or tortillas, if desired.

May 12, 2008

Let's start things off with a big, happy, declarative statement, shall we? It's Monday and it's awful out and despite being almost mid-May, we're dealing with March-like winds and rain instead of flowers and sunshine. I need something to cheer me up, perhaps you do, too, and I'm thinking this might just do the trick:

I'll always love the high-heat, Judy-Rodgers sanctioned way of roasting chicken, but the last time I did that we ended up having to live with the stench of scorched chicken fat in our apartment for nigh on a week. Since then, I've been banned from preparing chicken that way. Apparently, until we have a little elf living with us whose sole purpose is to run around silently behind me, cleaning up in the wake of my cooking endeavors and periodically scrubbing the inside of the oven (and while little elf is at it, also mopping), I won't be roasting at high heat again.

(Tragic, I know. How do I stand it?)

But over the weekend I found myself repeatedly coming back to a recipe printed in the LA Times a few weeks ago that has you stir Greek yogurt together with some herbs and spices and then massage big handfuls of the stuff onto (and into) a chicken, before letting it marinate for an hour and then roasting it at relatively average heat until cooked through.

See, doesn't that sound good? Something about spiced yogurt and marinating chicken... and I'm bewitched all over again.

Yogurt tenderizes chicken, don't you know, and the herbs and spices infuse the meat subtly. The marinating time and then the relatively long, slow roasting ensure an incredibly juicy bird. And to gild the lily - but this gilding I found absolutely necessary - the recipe has you roast shallots and red peppers beneath the chicken. After the roast is done, you gingerly peel the peppers (watch your fingers, they'll be hot!) and then puree them with the shallots and a disc of puckery goat cheese into an ochre-tinged sauce.

The original recipe has you do a fancy pan sauce with drippings and stock and flour and whisking, but is it a surprise to any of you at this point that I was far too lazy to follow suit? It was late, we were hungry, and that burnished bird was sitting on its platter making our stomachs growl. So I scraped up the pan drippings, separated the fat as best I could and dumped the drippings into the creamy sauce before whizzing it one last time.

And it was fabulous. Sweet and savory and with the faint funk of goat cheese about it. We slathered the sauce onto our forkfuls of chicken, dragged the chicken through great puddles of the stuff on our plates. If we hadn't been in the presence of dignified company, I might have even taken a spoon to the bowl. Best of all, while the chicken disappeared in a flash, there's sauce to last us another night at least.

I'm planning on using this yogurt-marinade technique over and over again - committing it to memory, even handing it over to the lamination files, if you will! The chicken was dreamily moist and juicy and would make fantastic leftovers.

This is the perfect Sunday supper - one you can start as the sun starts
its slow descent in the late afternoon and can have on the table by the time the light is
gone, but the birds are still out doing their early evening calls. I
love this time of day in spring and especially where we live now, where
we can actually hear the birds over the sounds of the city. If I go out on the balcony, I almost feel like
I'm back in Berlin again - close enough to the city that I see the
sunlight sparking off the buildings in Manhattan, but far enough away
that I hear more birds than sirens; birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees around our building.

And there we go! Suddenly this cold, gray day doesn't seem so bad anymore. I have red pepper sauce, Ben, and a movie waiting for me (how to choose: Scarface on DVD or Iron Man at the theater?).

Happy Monday, folks. I hope it's a good week for you all.

Yogurt-Rubbed Roast Chicken with Red Pepper SauceServes 3 to 4

Note: I made a half-recipe - the original makes two birds, and
enough sauce to last for a week's worth of sandwiches, I think. Also, I
omitted the steps and ingredients for the pan sauce. Click here for the original.

1. In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, 1 tablespoon of
the olive oil, the dry mustard, thyme, coriander, 2 teaspoons
salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Loosen the skin around the breasts and thighs, then rub both chicken all over (beneath the skin
and inside the cavity, too) with the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate the
chicken, uncovered, for 1 hour.

2. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the shallots, carrots,
peppers, the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste into a large roasting pan
and toss well. Arrange a rack over the vegetables.

3. Arrange the chicken on the rack, breast-side up, and roast,
basting occasionally with pan juices, until the vegetables are very
tender and the chicken is deep golden brown and cooked through, 1 1/2
to 2 hours. Transfer the chicken to a large platter and tent with
foil; set aside.

4. Drain the pan drippings into a bowl, then skim off and discard the fat; set aside.

5. Remove and discard the skin from the peppers (it should peel
off fairly easily), then transfer them to a food processor. Add half
the shallots and pulse until roughly chopped. Add the goat cheese,
salt and pepper to taste, and pan drippings and puree until smooth.

6. Carve the chicken and transfer to plates. Spoon 1 to 2
tablespoons of the red pepper and goat cheese sauce over each serving
and serve with the remaining roasted shallots and carrots on the side.

November 08, 2007

Oh yes, I know what you're thinking. Doesn't that look lovely? All burnished and brown and crusty? All herby and earthy and fragrant? Pork tenderloin, baby, and soft little potatoes, baked in a salt crust. Oh yeah. You don't even know how good the house smells right now. So good. Yes, it does.

I'm alone in the kitchen, heating up braised cabbage on the stove, while the pork and potatoes roast quietly in the oven under their thick cloak of herbed salt. The apartment's all warm and cozy and I'm waiting for my fella to come home and sit down to dinner with me - cold beer in hand, square meal awaiting, love all around.

Keys in the door. He's home! The man walks in, peels off his wool coat, shouts out a "Honey, I'm home!". I'm dancing in the kitchen, pulling the pan out of the oven, happy, so happy. He rinses off the back of his neck, plastered with little hairs from a quick trip to the barber, walks into the kitchen (that haircut, that face, oh, it's good), kisses me hello. We're all so-nice-to-see-you, oh-goodness-how-I've-missed-you, oh-lordy-how-awesome-are-you, no-no-how-awesome-are-you, and then suddenly - with no warning - all this huggy-bear-kissy-face, domesticated-bliss fest comes to a shrieking, gear-grinding halt.

One finger stretches out and points. Lips curl. The music stops playing. Readers, the world practically stops turning.

"What. Is. That."

(Now is probably the time to tell you that if there's one thing that Ben dislikes more than salt (well, except for anchovies - and the feeling for them is more like abject loathing, so it's not even up for discussion), it's pork. So pork and salt, together? You can only imagine the horror.)

Come on, baby, pork is tasty, so tasty, and really, not at all bad for you, as long as you're not snarfing bacon down every weekend and having pulled pork sandwiches on a weekly basis. Would I try to hurt you, honey, would I? I think you might be getting a little unreasonable about the whole thing, trust me, baby, trust me and if you don't trust me, then trust Russ, because Russ - well, it changed his life, this salt-roasting pork thing and if Russ says something's life-changing, I have to sit up and pay attention, I just do.

Ben stands in the kitchen in accusatory silence. I wield the butt of our heaviest knife and crack open the salt crust. Fragrance, the earthy scent of rosemary and potatoes and roasting meat, wafts aloft. I peek a sideways glance. Ben's impassive but for the tiny glint of interest now shining in his eyes. I lift up the browned tenderloin, brush off the clinging salt, set it down and carve it into moist, pink slices. The potatoes, tender with appealingly wrinkled skin, emerge from the white, sandy dome.

Three small potatoes on each plate, three slices of juicy pork, a riotous, purple tangle of cabbage, too. The knives sink easily into the flesh of the potatoes, the plates run pink with juices. The pork is tender and tastes, as Russ says, hugely of itself. A suggestion of rosemary fills the air, but the potatoes are just their best possible version, as potato-ey as it gets. I do my best to enjoy the meal subtly. I don't want to bang Ben over the head with the triumph of the pork tenderloin. It's bad enough to have forced him into eating something he usually spurns - I can't then also have it be the best meal of the week, can I?

What a silly question. Ben's plate is empty, as is mine. I get up for more cabbage and he holds out his plate. "More pork, please." I knew you'd come around, honey, I'm so glad you did.

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the rosemary and the
salt in a large mixing bowl and stir in 1 cup of water until the
texture is that of gritty snow.

2. In a large skillet, heat the oil until the surface ripples.
Pat the pork tenderloin dry with paper towels and sear it in the hot
oil until it is browned on all sides, about 8 minutes.

3. While the pork is browning, spoon a layer of salt about
one-fourth-inch thick in the bottom of a gratin or baking dish just big
enough to hold the pork and the potatoes in a single layer.

4. When the pork is browned, pat it dry with a paper towel to
remove any excess oil and place it in the gratin dish, laying it down
the center. Arrange the potatoes around the outside and cover
everything with the remaining salt.

5. Roast until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 145
degrees, about 20 to 25 minutes. At this point, the pork will be quite
moist but still a little pink. If you prefer the pork to be more
cooked, push the temperature to 150, about 5 more minutes. Remove the
baking dish from the oven and set aside 5 minutes to finish cooking.

6. With a sturdy metal spoon or chef's knife, chip a crack
around the base of the salt crust and carefully lift off the top. Use a
dry pastry brush to brush away any salt on the surface of the potatoes
or the pork, turning the pork over to brush all sides. Transfer the
pork to a carving board. Slice the pork into medallions one-fourth-inch
thick and arrange on a serving platter. Place the potatoes in a medium
bowl and toss with the shallots and butter just until coated,
discarding any excess butter. Arrange the potatoes around the outside
of the pork and serve immediately.

October 15, 2007

The block continues, I'll be honest, though at least complaining about it seems to have unleashed some crazy sort of energy in me. After my last post, I suddenly felt freed - marched myself over to the corner salon and got a pedicure (Essie Bordeaux - so hottt), then planted myself determinedly in front of the computer on Friday night, with two lukewarm, sweetish, perfectly chewy char siu bao for dinner. Two episodes of The Office and one of Grey's Anatomy (does anyone agree that this show has jumped the shark? I am losing interest, swiftly - or maybe it's just tough to follow the genius of Steve Carell) later, I felt somewhat renewed. The next day, using all this new-found energy, I scoured the apartment within an inch of its life - cable wires and armoire carvings and window ledges have never sparkled with such lustre.

I also cooked like a madwoman - applesauce (recipe here, sans meringue, and next time I'd use less vanilla or none at all - but other than that it was delicious, lip-smackingly so) and chocolate-chip cookies (these, which in my opinion are The Best, though I didn't have enough brown sugar or time, so they didn't turn out quite as perfectly as they usually do, but if you follow Debbie's instructions, you will be on Chocolate Chip Cookie Cloud Nine, I promise), and apple butter (much tested in the blogosphere, but originating here and oh-so-wonderful - especially in plain Liberte yogurt, try it if you don't believe me... it might be my best snack yet), but also this one-pot meal from the same article as the collard squares.

It was tasty and easy - who knew that oven-cooking orzo with chicken broth rendered the orzo practically creamy? The lemons gave the dish an interesting, bitter bite and the olives provided a pleasing, salty kick. It kept us fed for two days and is the kind of meal you can get on the stove while you simultaneously zip up and down in your building feeling a little bit like Eloise though minus the pet raisin-eating turtle and hardy English nanny, to get your laundry in and out of the machines while your boyfriend scrubs the tub and moans for respite every once in a while (oh please, like I'm taking pity on you, I scrubbed the cable wires, for crying out loud, though actually, after reading this, I've decided that's the last time we clean with our old, toxic cleaning supplies - it's Blog Action Day, people! I'm taking action.) which, if you think about, is a pretty good kind of dinner to have in your arsenal.

(Is anyone else wondering where I'm going with all of this?)

(Nowhere, is where! Absolutely nowhere.)

The best part of the weekend, which was already shaping up to be pretty great (apparently cleaning and television-watching is all I need for happiness - tragic, I know), was that Deb and Alex and Shauna and Danny and Shauna's sweet friends all trekked out valiantly to Forest Hills, where we had a completely delightful meal at danny brown Wine Bar & Kitchen and talked gluten-free flours and flopping flans until we were gently nudged out the door (not only was our waiter, Tim, so super-charming, but the staff let us linger far past their Sunday closing time and had nothing but smiles and thanks for us when we left - gracious and delicious, that place is a gem). There's nothing like spending time with your Internet buddies, really.

And with that, mercifully, this manic post comes to an end. Thanks for reading, everyone! Let's hope things improve soon. I'm off to eat my weight in chocolate-chip cookies. Maybe that will inspire me.

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the chicken legs well on all sides with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

2. In a Dutch oven or large stockpot, heat the olive oil over
medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the legs well on all sides,
about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan.

3. Add the orzo, chicken stock, garlic, lemon wedges and juice,
olives, bay leaf and 1 tablespoon of the oregano. Stir to combine all
the ingredients, then return the chicken to the pan. Cover and transfer
to the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is done (the
meat will be firm and its juices will run clear). Taste and adjust the
seasoning if necessary, sprinkle with the remaining oregano and serve.

October 01, 2007

I am a changed woman. I spent four days in Mexico last week and had nothing less than an epiphany while I was there.

What was it, you ask? Well, it turns out that I adore Mexican food.

Yes, me! The girl who hates cilantro and always wrinkles her nose when her boyfriend suggests Mexican food, so much so that he's stopped asking and only occasionally complains about it. The girl who never understood why burritos and tacos and enchiladas draped with strings of goopy cheese and stuffed with pallid bean mush were practically the national food for kids of her generation. The girl who tried very hard to be a good sport and find something - anything - to like about the Mexican food available to her and who finally just threw in the towel and resigned herself to disliking it - an unpopular stance at best.

The truth is, I still don't like the Mexican food in New York or that stuff listed above - I'm still convinced it's not worth my time or my money. But the Mexican food in Mexico? The flaky, fragrant tortillas, the myriad salsas glittering red, green, pink and burgundy in the sun, the chewy, lean meat, charred and blistered on an open grill, the pure, clean flavors, the freshness and the spice - oh, the blessed, blessed spice - well, like I said, it was almost a religious experience.

And. The moment I realized I had fallen, hook, line and sinker: lost in thought while chewing on a mouthful of salad that topped a crunchy tostada, I crunched down on a cilantro leaf and it was like sunlight bursting through a shaded glen or something - suddenly, I got it! Bright and earthy at the same time, the flavor exploded in my mouth, tying all the other things together - the crispy tortilla, the unctuous crema, the spicily dressed salad. For those of you who know just how much and how long I've loathed the stuff, unhappily so, you can only imagine my glee. If I hadn't been sitting at the table with people to whom I couldn't admit my sudden discovery for fear of sounding like an utter fool, I would jumped up right then and there and shouted to the heavens, "Cilantrooooooooooo!"

Yeah. It was a momentous couple of days, for sure. Now that I'm back home again, I've done nothing but pore over the few Mexican recipes I have in my house and tried to find somewhere in Queens (there must be somewhere, right? A taco truck, a hand-pulled cart?) that will sell me the kind of food I ate in a little dot of a town in Baja, at an outdoor stand where a bowful of roasted jalapenos cooled next to the blackened grill and our tacos came filled with chopped, grilled meat, a shower of diced white onions and chopped cilantro, and a fluid avocado salsa, unlike anything I'd ever seen or tasted before.

For Ben, this conversion is like the Second Coming.

Last night, I triumphantly held aloft a long-clipped recipe from the LA Times for Diana Kennedy's
meatballs that I'd been hoarding all by its lonesome, since it's one of
the only Mexican recipes I've clipped over the years. The meatballs are
made from a flavorful mix of pork and beef and stuffed to the gills
with chopped zucchini and onion - the meat barely binds the vegetables
together, making for light and flavorful little albondigas. Even better, the meatballs aren't first seared in a pan, like so many polpette
of my youth, but rather braised directly in a simmering sauce. It makes
for an easier clean-up and lighter, brighter-tasting meatballs.

Better still, the sauce: plum tomatoes whizzed together with a few canned chipotles (my mother bought us an immersion blender while she was visiting - thanks, again! - and that thing is a powerhouse. I didn't even bother peeling my tomatoes and they liquefied in a matter of seconds) and gently simmered with some olive oil and chicken stock. That stuff is addictive - I could have eaten just the sauce on rice for dinner. Except not really, because those meatballs were completely delicious - spiced with restraint, tender and sweet from the braising, the perfect tasty foil to the spicy sauce. I gave the leftovers to Ben today and am regretting it wholly.

Oh, Mexico. I'm sorry it's taken me so long. But I'm here now! Consider this my first entry into a whole new world I cannot wait to discover. I haven't yet bought my own cilantro, but that day is coming and soon.

1. Place the ground pork and beef in a food processor
and pulse several times. Transfer to a large bowl. Trim the ends of the
zucchini and chop finely. Add to the bowl.

2. Finely grind the peppercorns and cumin seeds in a
spice grinder or mortar and pestle and add to the meat. Add the
oregano, eggs, onion and salt and gently use your hands or a spatula to
thoroughly combine all the ingredients.

3. Gently form the mixture into 1 1/2 -inch meatballs. Place on a baking sheet and refrigerate while making the sauce.

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Core the
tomatoes and place them in the boiling water. Reduce the heat and
simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the tomatoes and cool for a few minutes.

2. Process the tomatoes and chipotle chiles in a blender or food processor until smooth.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the tomato
sauce. When it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 5
minutes. Add the chicken broth. When the sauce comes back to a simmer,
add the meatballs.

4. Cover the pan and simmer the meatballs over low
heat until they are cooked through, about 50 minutes. Adjust the
seasoning by tasting and adding salt just before the end of the cooking
time. This dish can be prepared a day ahead or can be frozen and
reheated.

August 17, 2007

I don't mean to be hopelessly materialistic, but I bought a platter (well, actually three - a smaller one and two larger ones, for a grand total of eight dollars) at a thrift store the other day and it filled me with deep-seated satisfaction and joy. I'm kind of into all that stuff, you see. Plates please me, as do tablecloths from flea markets and silver salt shakers from my mother and etched glasses in green and yellow crystal that we bought as seconds a few years ago in Berlin. For years, I've been making do with a few Sarreguemines plates I bought on Ebay years ago (they reminded me of my puces forays in Paris), with glasses that roommates contributed to the apartment, with a hodge-podge assortment of forks and knives, with paper towels instead of linen ones. But now that we've found our place in Queens, I've been thrilled to leave those things behind.

It was fine, at first. After all, at twenty-three, I was far too busy staying up until 6 am with my girlfriends in bars and eating hors d'oeuvres for dinner at book parties in the East Village and Tribeca to care about the state of my kitchen. I'd visit my mother and she'd show me the wonderful things she'd started saving for me, "for when you have casa tua", and I'd admire them, an antique ceramic bread box, linens she'd salvaged and starched, her grandmother's silverware, champagne coupes bought piece by piece at the flea market. But casa mia was a faraway concept, one I didn't particularly long for yet. I liked having roommates, a communal home, the freedom to break a glass or eat with a plastic fork. Linen towels would have been awfully annoying to launder compared with the disposability of a paper napkin. So I'd stow the treasures away in her closet and go back to New York to resume my life.

The years progressed, though, and as is wont to happen, I grew up a little and started hungering for a home of my own. One in which I could assume that the dishes would always be actually clean after being washed. One in which I didn't have to worry about an old plate being stuck carelessly in the microwave. One that made me want to wash linen towels and vacuum more than once a month and not to have to serve dinner directly from the pots on the stove. For years, I shied away from thrift stores in New York precisely because I didn't want to be tempted to buy anything I wouldn't be able to use. My life felt temporary. Why would I need to bring anything more into that life but the essentials?

Hence my joy the other day about finding those platters. It was an unexpected gift. Oh, I know I sound so bourgeois. But it's the truth - the collection of all those little things that I've been storing away for years and the release to be able to make this apartment my home, our home, well, nothing could please me more.

So I brought the platters back to Queens, the weight of the bag digging a red stripe into my shoulders, and washed the price stickers off in hot, soapy water. Then I made dinner - a punchy salad of watercress and parsley, dressed with horseradish and capers and two kinds of mustard, and topped with slices of broiled steaks. Arranged on that clean, white expanse, the salad really shone - glossy, green leaves, crisply browned croutons, juicy, pink meat with those perfectly crusty pockets and corners, while the capers provided briny little pops of flavor. The sensation of croutons crunching and rare meat yielding and fresh greens folding was totally sublime. (Though when I make this again, because I will, I'll use skirt or hanger steak instead. The rib steaks were a little fatty, and I prefer a chewier cut with salad.)

I know that stuff doesn't define us, that if all of those "precious" things were gone tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. Love, family, health - that's what counts. And on those points, well, all I can ask is how I ever got so lucky. So, of course a good thrift, then, is just icing on the cake, a midday treat, an excuse to make a little victory jig in public, if anything. But it can also make you stop and think about life, its small yet profound changes, the immeasurable gratitude you have towards the universe, and the funny fact that sometimes all you need to do is serve dinner on a simple, white, oval plate and contentedness is yours.

1. Line a broiler pan with aluminum foil and heat broiler. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Put steaks on broiler pan and broil for 5 minutes on each side, for rare.

2. Meanwhile, in a salad bowl, whisk together capers, horseradish, lemon juice, mustards and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add toasted bread cubes, parsley and watercress and toast until lightly wilted.

3. When steaks are done, let them rest for 5 minutes on a cutting board. Pour a tablespoon of the steak juices over the greens and toss. Arrange the dressed greens on a platter. Slice and arrange the steak on the salad and pour remaining juices over the steak. Serve.